Americans Must Halt the March to War on Venezuela

The Trump administration appears to be spoiling for war with Venezuela. Yet that country poses no national security threat to the United States, nor has Congress issued a declaration of war. Despite this, reports indicate that the Trump White House authorized covert CIA actions against Venezuela, while the U.S. military conducted provocative maneuvers—such as flights of B-52 and B-1 nuclear-capable bombers near Venezuelan airspace and naval deployments in the Caribbean, including the carrier strike group led by the USS Gerald R. Ford. These hostile acts were seemingly designed to intimidate Venezuela, destabilize its government, and perhaps precipitate a coup against President Nicolás Maduro—a government the U.S. has declared illegitimate without clear legal justification.

We must be clear: it is up to the Venezuelan people, and them alone, to choose their leaders and their system of government. Likewise, it’s up to the American people whether they are to support and condone extrajudicial murders done in their name—or whether they’re willing to act to condemn and put a stop to them.

The Trump administration has claimed it is targeting (without convincing evidence) “narco-terrorism,” yet Venezuela is a minor player in the production and shipment of narcotics such as cocaine and fentanyl to the United States. Extrajudicial actions—like the destruction of vessels and the killing of alleged traffickers on the high seas without due process—underscore the capriciousness and illegality of U.S. policy in this region.

Such chauvinism toward darker-skinned peoples, such violence directed against nations that refuse to submit to U.S. demands, and such blatant disregard for Venezuelan sovereignty all have familiar historical echoes. The Monroe Doctrine of the 19th century has been reinterpreted for the 21st, now serving as a justification for virtually any form of military or political meddling by Washington in the Western Hemisphere. Manifest Destiny has expanded beyond North America into Latin America, driven by a grasping, greedy, and seemingly insatiable appetite for natural resources—especially oil and gas, of which Venezuela holds the world’s largest proven reserves.

What the Trump administration has contemplated with regard to Venezuela is naked and brutal imperialism, echoing the worst excesses of early 20th-century U.S. interventions. Recall Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler’s confession in the 1930s that he had “been a gangster for capitalism,” enforcing U.S. corporate interests throughout Latin America under presidential orders. Back then, the United States had a Department of War that made no apologies for its imperialism, particularly within “its” hemisphere, where military power served the ends of extractive capitalism.

“The business of America is business,” it was once said—and that includes the business of controlling access to Venezuela’s vast oil wealth. The nation is also rich in natural gas, iron ore, bauxite, and gold. Conveniently, Venezuela’s most recent Nobel Peace Prize laureate has pledged to “open” the country to global investment, welcoming multinational corporations eager to exploit its resources. The stage is thus being set for yet another disastrous coup or regime-change operation—this time without any rational process of debate within America’s national security apparatus.

Clearly, the Trump administration has sought to create conditions leading to Venezuela’s capitulation, collapse, or internal coup—all of which would end not in democracy, but in kleptocracy. The economic prize is oil; the political prize is punishing a socialist government for refusing both to play the capitalist game and to surrender to an imperial hegemon.

To speak plainly, this is yet another conflict about oil and profit—about trillions of dollars and the future of the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency. The 2003 invasion of Iraq—first dubbed Operation Iraqi Liberation (OIL) before being hastily renamed Operation Iraqi Freedom—was likewise driven by access to petroleum. Continued U.S. hostility toward Iran has similar roots. Even the Russia-Ukraine War has been leveraged to advance U.S. energy interests, particularly by eliminating competition from Russian gas via the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines and expanding U.S. LNG exports to Europe. At home, Trump’s opening of Alaska’s most pristine wilderness to drilling reflects the same obsession with fossil fuel dominance.

Economic “hit men” continue to shape U.S. foreign policy, ensuring that access to oil and natural gas remains central. As Trump himself once mused, Venezuela’s fragility could lead to “collapse”—a scenario in which the U.S. would “come to the rescue” and claim its oil “in the name of democracy.”

This is not democracy. It is shamocracy—kleptocracy. Gangster capitalism, as Major General Butler memorably called it. It is illegal, immoral, shameful—and may well prove the final nail in the coffin of America’s espoused ideals of liberty, freedom, and justice. To avert this calamity, the American people must mobilize as citizens to resist and rein in lawless authoritarianism as practiced here by the Trump administration. Failure to do so will not only cost the lives of U.S. military servicemembers but of untold numbers of innocent Venezuelans, leading to regional instability, humanitarian catastrophe, and possibly yet another prolonged and foolhardy regime-change war. Such a war, no matter how poorly managed, would then likely be used by Trump to further advance authoritarianism within the United States.

SIGNERS

Dennis Laich, Director, Eisenhower Media Network, Major General, US Army (Ret.)
Christian Sorensen, Associate Director, Former Arabic linguist, US Air Force (Ret.)
William J. Astore, Lieutenant Colonel, US Air Force (Ret.)
Michael Baker, Rear Admiral, US Navy (Ret.)
Dennis Fritz, Command Chief Master Sergeant, US Air Force (Ret.)
Josephine Guilbeau, Former U.S. Army All-Source Intel Analyst
Matthew Hoh, Former Marine Corps officer, and State and Defense official.
Andrian Lewis, US Army (Ret.)
Coleen Rowley, Special Agent, FBI (Ret.)
Lawrence B. Wilkerson, Colonel, US Army (Ret.)
Ann Wright, Colonel, US Army (Ret.) and former US diplomat
Mike Young, Lieutenant Colonel, US Army (Ret.)

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